Trust Me I’m Lying Excerpt/Slideshow

I’ve wanted to put something like this together for a long time and so when AMP Energy’sPowerDash proposed sponsoring the idea, I jumped on it. What follows is a selected piece from Chapter II in Trust Me I’m Lying, adapted into a slideshare presentation. It’s a how to for one of the more controversial topics of the book “Trading Up the Chain”–essentially, how to create and influence the news with very little effort. If you remember from the book, this tactic can be used for good (a friend’s charity is my first example) or for bad (I talk about Terry Jones and his disgusting media stunts as well). In any case, it’s something you want to understand, whether you’re in marketing or simply a consumer.

For those of you who have read the book already, enjoy and hopefully show it to your friends. For those of you who haven’t, hopefully this gives you a taste of the book.

Why am I doing this now? The big news is that the Revised & Expanded paperback of Trust Me I’m Lying will be coming out in mid-June and the book is now available for preorder. The paperback includes an updated preface/introduction from me, three case studies, a selection of articles I’ve written and some selected editing and improvements to the main text. It’s worth checking out (plus it’s cheaper).

Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of Trust Me, I’m Lying, The Obstacle Is The Way, Ego Is The Enemy, and other books about marketing, culture, and the human condition. His work has been translated into thirty languages and has appeared everywhere from the Columbia Journalism Review to Fast Company. His company, Brass Check, has advised companies such as Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as Grammy Award winning musicians and some of the biggest authors in the world. He lives in Austin, Texas.

10 Comments

T
April 16, 2013 at 9:43 am

Ryan, I’m interested in your honest assessment as an author regarding the selected edits and improvements you speak of (the revision and expansion I get). I loved the book and refer to it in conversation constantly. I remember some armchair reviewers commenting negatively on the style in which the book was written (load of BS). I can imagine that the main impetus behind your decision for revision was that the publishing house wanted to give you that option. But why did you personally feel you needed to make revisions to the existing main text? Was it feedback you received?

I think it’s interesting because people usually think of books as static and the readers usually assume that the main text was ironed out before it shipped the first time. As a marketer, are you afraid this could be perceived as an admission that the original edition could have been improved? I think there’s few authors who wouldn’t love to go back to improve something in their books, if they were given the chance. But even if they were, most feel there wouldn’t be anything to “improve” regarding the text that which would make a new printing worth it.

Tim Ferris came out with a revised and expanded edition of his first book, but the main text from the original was left largely intact (same wording, sections, flow, etc). I think you had more room to expand on because the topic is media interference and that’s always evolving (especially if some of it evolved as a reaction to your original edition).

Does any of this work if you’re not controversial? I have a unique, funny, overly-long, and most likely self-indulgent book trailer going live this week, and I’d love to get press for it, but unless I can get someone to protest my trailer for my book about Happiness (not holding my breath), it probably won’t generate a lot of headlines. That said, my friends are telling me that my seriously funny trailer is a bad idea because, although it made them laugh their asses off, it doesn’t match the tone of the book, which is seriously awesome self-help guidance for getting happy. Maybe therein lies the controversy? How, Ryan Holiday?! How can I make your genius work for ME??!!